Armed Services Chairman Wants Permanent Afghanistan Bases

Calling Afghanistan an ongoing breeding ground for terrorist groups, the chairman of the House Armed Services Committee said he wants American troops to keep U.S. bases open in the still-fragile country into the foreseeable future.

Rep. Mac Thornberry, R-Texas, stopped short of calling for permanent U.S. military bases, but he said the threat posed by separatist groups in the region demands some type of presence similar to what American forces left in Germany following World War II.

“What I’m looking at is what’s in U.S. national security interests,” he told reporters Tuesday. “I keep coming back to the point that terrorists are always going to be attracted to Afghanistan. We’ve seen homeland plots in the past come from there.  “For us not to have a presence, for us not to be able to gather intelligence there, it would just be a huge blunder.”

Thornberry, a frequent critic of White House plans to draw down U.S. military forces in Afghanistan, said his recent congressional visit to the country only strengthened his conviction that a too-fast withdrawal will destabilize the region. - Read More 
Armed Services Chairman Wants Permanent Afghanistan Bases

Armed Services Committee chairman calls for indefinite militarypresence in Afghanistan - Stripes